Article Posted on : - Dec 23, 2010

J-2X Engine. Photo: NASA.

CALIFORNIA (BNS): NASA and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne have successfully completed the heart of the J-2X upper stage rocket engine -- the turbomachinery assemblies -- for the first development engine off the production line.

"The turbopumps are extremely complicated engine components whose design requires delicate balances between many of the fields of mechanical engineering, and whose fabrication and assembly involve extremely precise construction," Gary Genge, J-2X turbomachinery manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alaska, was quoted as saying in a NASA news report.

The engine's turbomachinery consists of two turbopumps, each part pump and part turbine. Turbines provide the power to drive the pumps. One pump pushes high-pressure liquid oxygen, or oxidizer, and the other pumps liquid hydrogen fuel through the engine and to the engine's main injector. When the two meet, the fuels combine in a controlled high-pressure explosion producing the combustion needed to propel a launch vehicle to its journey to space, the report further added.

The J-2X engine is a highly efficient and versatile rocket engine and has the ideal thrust and performance characteristics to power the upper stage of a heavy-lift launch vehicle.

Powered by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the J-2X builds on heritage designs but relies on nearly a half-century of NASA spaceflight experience and technological and manufacturing advances to deliver up to 294,000 pounds of thrust.